By Mizan Rahman/Dhaka
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the government is committed to setting up digital centres at the grassroots level in villages to create more jobs by using the information and communication technology.
“We don’t want our youths to go here and there looking for jobs, rather they should become self-reliant, stand on their own feet and create jobs for others,” she said.
Hasina was addressing the Digital Centre Entrepreneurs Conference in Dhaka yesterday.
Some 11,000 entrepreneurs from over 4,500 digital centres, previously known as Union information and service centres, across the country took part in the conference to celebrate the fourth founding anniversary of the digital centre programme.
Terming the digital centre entrepreneurs as the ‘digital sons’ of the country, the prime minister urged them to devote themselves towards building ‘Sonar Bangla’ as dreamt by the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
“You must have self-confidence and self-dignity that you would build Bangladesh not
relying on others,” she added.
Hasina mentioned that the country’s youths could now take collateral-free loan up to 100,000 taka from Karmasangsthan Bank and start their own business and the ceiling of loan would be raised to 200,000 taka in the future to create further scopes for self-employment.
Mentioning that now there are some ill-attempts to oust those entrepreneurs of the digital centres who were associated with those from the very beginning, Hasina said these digital centre entrepreneurs would continue to hold their positions.
Hasina warned public representatives, including the municipal mayors and councilors, sub-district council chairmen, union council chairmen and members not to intervene in the activities of these digital centres.
Noting that the countrywide Internet speed is not up to the mark, Hasina said the government has taken various steps in this regard and high-speed Internet would be available in the future.
She mentioned the approval of Bangabandhu satellite project which is expected to further enhance the digital services. The work for the project would start very soon as a process is under way to float tender for it, she added.
The prime minister also said her government plans to set up high-tech parks in every district alongside the main
high-tech park in the capital.
Mentioning that the Union digital centres have so far provided some 50mn services, Hasina said some 70mn online birth registrations alongside registration of some 2mn men and women seeking to go abroad have been completed.
She said the birth registration would be done in the digital centres and suggested registering the deaths of people to keep the death records.
Highlighting various services from the digital centres including over some 200 e-services to rural people, Hasina said some 4mn students are being imparted education through some 23,500 multimedia classrooms while multimedia classrooms would be set up in all schools across Bangladesh gradually.
Hasina said digital centres are also offering outsourcing and training facilities for the youths through which they could attain more skills and raise their incomes.
The prime minister also renewed her pledge to build a hunger- and poverty-free mid-income country well before 2021 and a developed country by 2041.
PM’s ICT adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy said it is fact that the speed and quality of Internet services is lagging in the countrywide over 4,500 digital centres, but the government has taken initiatives and it would be possible to ensure high-speed broadband Internet to every Union over the next four years.
Joy said when the election manifesto of Awami League was unveiled in 2008 to build ‘Digital Bangladesh’; many had then termed it impossible due to the scarcity of electricity and limited Internet access. “But, after five years, no one is saying how the ‘Digital Bangladesh’ dream is being materialised.
It is now a reality.”
